E36 328: In over my head!

It's an aftermarket one, that's why it's oversized.

I removed the intake manifold and the cam position sensor is connected. It's the one on the left.

I need to test the resistance on the sensor to verify it's bad.

I believe that I will be able to switch these two female ends so I can connect the intake temp sensor to the ECU.

Even an aftermarket oil filter o ring should fit correctly, my hunch is that there is an old black one hard as plastic 3/8" below the flange stuck in the groove. Common mistake. The flange is not the sealing surface. Also, I watched your video, your tach did not bump when you cranked the engine, leading me to believe that the crank sensor is not plugged in correctly. BMW used to many of the same connectors in that harness and it is easy to plug them in wrong. Did you verify the correct placement by checking wire colors?

No, not really. I guess I should check that too.

I removed the cam position sensor and I checked the resistance of it. I only got a reading of .01 so I ordered a new one.

In reply to spork: Many of the wires are covered up at the ends with the plastic shielding that you can see from my pictures, so I will need to look at a wiring diagram more than I want to.

This came in the mail yesterday.

I checked the resistance but it was the same as the old one, so the test setting with my multimeter wasn't good. Now I have the intake temp sensor plugged in. I checked the volts on the battery and they're low, so there is a drain somewhere that's not with the amp. I'm charging it now and seeing if it will start soon.

I tried to start it and the same thing happened. I don't know what else to check.

crank position sensor on the wiring harness side

I was kind of thinking of that but there weren't many connectors that it could go to since I also got the updated harness from pelican parts.

I put the guibo and driveshaft in position, I just didn't torque them all the way down yet. I am most likely going to send it to my local shop to finish diagnosis and getting it started. Conceding defeat is very unsatisfying.

I also have a two day autocross event on the 26th and 27th.

I conceded defeat and sent the E36 to the shop on Monday. They didn't start working on it yet, probably because the fix isn't going to be easy. I don't like that, but it does help me save some money to be able to pay them since they need to do an alignment and bleed the clutch too, among other things. I have school coming up so I won't have 5+ hours every day to work on it when it starts. I am also going to need to beg for a drive (or two) for my local autocross 2 event weekend.

Bummer. The good news is that soon you'll get the car back and (hopefully) they'll have resolved all the issues. Sometimes it pays to pay. At least that is what I try to tell myself, because I am miserable at actually paying someone else to do work for me.

I was able to drive John's SMF 84 Civic hatchback on Saturday. He has a limited slip diff, a 4 pt roll bar, larger Integra front and rear disk brakes, and a CR-V engine swap. It has Direzza ZII's and the car rotates well for a front wheel drive car. We raced on a small parking lot and had to create a first lap section and then a second lap section that went to the finish line. I try to stay with rear wheel drive cars since I like the handling on those better, and because I have two of them that I will autocross with. The steering rack is also slow, which took a little adjusting to. It had manual steering, and was fairly light when trying to park it because the car is so light. It kind of makes me want to de-power my Camaro steering rack. After getting used to the slow steering on my first run, I was really able to pick up my pace and get some good runs in. John was worried that I would be able to beat him in his car that he's raced for 3 or 4 seasons, but I reassured him that I wouldn't be able to since I don't really understand FWD cars, even though his was the most balanced handling of the few FWD cars I have autocrossed with. His car doesn't have ABS, so I made a 2 bad runs by locking up the brakes; one run was a second slower than my first run and I hit two cones, the run after that I locked them up after the finish and went through the back of the finish and into the grass for a DNF. It was fairly embarrassing, but our solo chair leader also locked up his brakes at the same spot I did and got a DNF in a RX-8, which is unusual. He was able to not plow into the grass, however. My best run was 37.351 and John got a 37.1. I was a little disappointed that I didn't match John's 37.1, but I missed the 3rd gear shift a little, which was probably why I didn't get it. They also did trophys by combining all the stock classes, all the street touring classes, ect. probably to keep the trophy count down and to speed it up since sometimes, 3-5 people will trophy because they're the only ones in their class. They did it by using Pax, of course. So I didn't expect to trophy, but I was able to get 3rd place and my co-driver John got second. It was a great day. The next day, John and plenty of the other drivers didn't want me to race their car, so I'm all tapped out. I will only race my car for the most part. I will let John race one of my cars to show him my appreciation since he has said that he doesn't like other people racing his car, even though it's not an expensive C5 or something like that. The safety steward did allow me to coach up the novices, since some of the fast drivers didn't want me to ride with them since plenty of them are trying to win in their class, so it's a tough crowd. Most of the novices were driving well, so I couldn't give them too many pointers, plus the safety steward said not to get too detailed or I will overwhelm them with info. I didn't get any pictures, though.

If you just want to run and not compete for a particular class trophy then just run in a prepared class instead like XP. That way even if you beat the guy you won't touch his class trophy.

That isn't the big issue, it's just that my guys don't want me to race their car anymore. I think that John is a good driver, not a really good driver.

Can sort of understand. It tends to wear tires out much quicker with two drivers. Gotta pony up the entry fee for them to make it worth their while. That's what I do when I race someone else's car. Also some people are sensitive about getting beat in raw time in their own car.

I may try that if my car still isn't running. I may try to pay someone to co-drive with them all of next season if I still have car problems. For my small update, my local shop still isn't sure if they want to do it. I think that the biggest problem for them is that they don't want to do a difficult job diagnosing it for $500 worth of man-hours and only charging me $250 for diagnosis. I will take it to a different shop tomorrow, though.

My local performance shop got my car started! Yay! He said that the engine was flooded, that's why it didn't have compression. He said that it's very unusual since EFI shouldn't be flooding an engine.

The performance shop said my car has around 9 check engine codes so they have plenty to diagnose to get it running. I just need a better paying job to avoid this excessive "wait time".

Cool! I can't wait to hear what all the issues were. Flooding the engine out is easy if you're troubleshooting the injectors without disconnecting the fuel pump, but it doesn't sound like you were doing that. Hopefully nothing was damaged from fuel washing the oil from the cylinders or anything like that.

Sounds like you're close to getting a running car back!

Yeah, if the bill isn't too high. They also said that it needs a IAT sensor, which is disappointing, since it also needs new tires.

I got the car back from the performance shop on Tues. $2400 lighter (had to borrow a lot of it), I am still not pleased. It's mostly because I forgot that the car has a battery drain problem that needs to be fixed. The battery is dead, so I need to buy a battery, and the power steering pump died, most likely from just sitting. I will unfortunately need to sell the car; the repairs are too costly, especially since my job has me driving, which makes this car a bad one to use for heavy commuting. The alignment is off, so I need to call them so they can fix it. I will post an ad in the next couple of days.

I'm not the happiest guy in the world right now.

Me pretending that I'm driving it. Tinted windows are great in the summer.

Im sorry about your car.

That sucks man, and you were making such good progress. I feel you're right on that edge were a couple hundred more will make it an awesome car for a long time, with all the stuff you have replaced. I know the feel of the BMW parts monster though.So best of luck with whatever you decide to do. Oh and if you were closer I would buy that Camaro off you in a heartbeat.

Crap. Any chance you can hang onto it and pick away at the things it needs over time to minimize the damage on your wallet?

I hope it all works out.

Sorry to hear this man. $2400, that is rough.